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Manhattan Beach News
Bright Light: Jim, Dominique and Charlie Webster (12/19)
By Dawnya Pring
Even though Charlie Webster died at five months and one day, he is leaving a legacy that will last for years.
Born April 3, 2001, to Manhattan Beach residents Jim and Dominique Webster, Charlie was born with gastroschesis, a condition where the baby's intestines form outside of the body while in the womb.
Charlie never made it home, but spent his entire life in intensive care units, first in the neonatal intensive care unit at Torrance Memorial Medical Center and then the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA Medical Center. Jim and Dominique went to visit him everyday.
"When you're a parent in this type of situation, it can be very difficult to connect with your child," said Dominique. So even though they lost their son, the Websters want to help other parents who find themselves in similar situations. They created a nonprofit organization called Charlie's Buddies to make hospital stays for the families of very sick infants a little more friendly.
"We're trying to make it a little easier for the parents," Dominique said. "The hospital can be so cold and foreign, we hope to make the environment less hostile."
The Websters hope to raise money through Charlie's Buddies to buy developmental toys, rocking chairs and blankets for neonatal intensive care units, or NICU (pronounced nick-you). Still in its infancy, Charlie's Buddies became an official nonprofit in October, but began shortly after their son died in September 2001.
Instead of flowers, the Websters asked family and friends to donate money or buy items for the NICUs in Charlie's memory.
"We raised $6,500 and were able to buy lots of things for the hospitals," said Jim, who is a software engineer and consultant for Boeing. "It has really motivated us to continue."
Dominique said creating Charlie's Buddies has been part of the healing process for them.
"I found for me the best way to heal was to give," Dominique said.
The UCLA Medical Center was the first recipient of a donation by the Websters.
"UCLA gets children from all over the county and it was there that we first started to realize how lucky we were compared to others," Dominique said. "Some mothers had to take the bus to get to the hospital, and some people would sleep in their cars because it was just too difficult to get back and forth from their homes to the hospital."
Dominique said eventually she would like to give financially needy parents things like phone cards, cafeteria meal tickets or parking passes - it costs $7 a day to park at UCLA Medical Center.
"We are lucky, between the two of us someone was always at the hospital," Dominique said. "We were able to do that without creating too much of a financial burden, but it's just not the case for many of these families."
The Websters were recently given a large donation of preemie-safe toys by South Bay toy company Tiny Love. They also hope to have a program in place that will provide each parent whose child is in the NICU at Torrance and UCLA with a welcome bag. The bag would not only have life's necessities, such as toothpaste, socks and literature on what to expect when their child is in intensive care, but a special memento - a plaster of Paris form of their infant's hand.
The hands were a Torrance Memorial nurse's idea. The Websters will provide the material and the nurses will make the miniature sculptures. The hands are a clear reminder of how delicate but human these babies are, said Jim.
The Websters are feeling good about the New Year. Dominique gave birth to a healthy 9-pound baby boy, Jackson Webster, in early December and they are organizing a charity golf tournament for Charlie's Buddies this summer. To learn more about the organization visit www.charliesbuddies.com.
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